"Why shouldn't we get things of our own and go and sell them--with
Bates' donkey?"
Oswald was thinking the same thing, but he wishes to be fair, so he owns
that Dicky spoke first. We all saw at once that the idea was a good one.
"Shall we dress up for it?" H.O. asked. We thought not. It is always
good sport to dress up, but I have never heard of people selling things
to farmers' wives in really beautiful disguises.
"We ought to go as shabby as we can," said Alice; "but somehow that
always seems to come natural to your clothes when you've done a few
interesting things in them. We have plenty of clothes that look poor but
deserving. What shall we buy to sell?"
"Pins and needles, and tape and bodkins," said Dora.
"Butter," said Noel; "it is terrible when there is no butter."
"Honey is nice," said H.O., "and so are sausages."
"Jake has ready-made shirts and corduroy trousers. I suppose a farmer's
shirt and trousers may give at any moment," said Alice, "and if he can't
get new ones he has to go to bed till they are mended."
Oswald thought tin-tacks, and glue, and string must often be needed to
mend barns and farm tools with if they broke suddenly. And Dicky said--
"I think the pictures of ladies hanging on to crosses in foaming seas
are good. Jake told me he sold more of them than anything. I suppose
people suddenly break the old ones, and home isn't home without a lady
holding on to a cross."
We went to Munn's shop, and we bought needles and pins, and tapes and
bodkins, a pound of butter, a pot of honey and one of marmalade, and
tin-tacks, string, and glue. But we could not get any ladies with
crosses, and the shirts and trousers were too expensive for us to dare
to risk it. Instead, we bought a head-stall for eighteenpence, because
how providential we should be to a farmer whose favourite horse had
escaped and he had nothing to catch it with; and three tin-openers, in
case of a distant farm subsisting entirely on tinned things, and the
only opener for miles lost down the well or something. We also bought
several other thoughtful and far-sighted things.
That night at supper we told Mrs. Bax we wanted to go out for the day.
She had hardly said anything that supper-time, and now she said--
"Where are you going? Teaching Sunday school?"
As it was Monday, we felt her poor brain was wandering--most likely for
want of quiet. And the room smelt of tobacco smoke, so we thought some
one had been to see her and perhaps been too noisy for her. So Oswald
said gently--
"No, we are not going to teach Sunday school."